The Light and the Dark

By Aayra Saiyed, 14, Massachusetts

Oh, the multitudes in their times

wish a prerogative to leave 

for somewhere celestial,

to an idyllic world

where the sky shines white,

filled with idealistic patterns,

all perfect—immaculate

straight edges, smooth curves.

It all fits inside the box, exactly a thousand days and nights,

and for those left over, we halve them, quarter them,

fit them inside many more a box

and the flawless rays of light never dare to hesitate

to wait, for even a single instant could ruin

the illusion…

Welcome

to your demanding ears,

unsatisfied, intensified,

until, through them, the perfect voice—

the perfect notes, the calm reassurance—

the glimmer of luminance, radiance—clicks finally;

it appeals…

And then shut the eyes away and see the light in the mind

—and how!-–filled with perfect angles and light

until it reaches the eyes,

and then you are forever bedazzled.

The night is a time where leaves rot,

insects crawl,

wind howls.

How austere—says the light in the heart–

I wish I could engulf it with all radiance.

From the light to the night,

here is an impossibly round piece of flint

and a perfectly-tiled rock; smash one against the other

Light

It

Up!

The fire is white and blinding—its embers consume the darkness.

The beautiful pushes out the ugly, says the heart.

Yet there is something covert.

Such a thing no one understands.

The darkness may be plain and austere.

The darkness may be harsh and frightening,

yet it contains the truth, however ugly—

however macabre and grotesque.

If we always look to the light, we may never find the truth  buried beneath the void,

no matter how much the radiance guides us.

Once upon a time there was suffering,

and that was when the nights were forever,

when the moon was up in the sky the whole day.

We couldn’t stand the truth.

We couldn’t bear the sight of blood

echoing through the cavern.

We couldn’t bear to hear swords clashing.

We couldn’t bear to realize it was all our fault.

And so we made a fire

and burned the night.

There are some who deny the darkness,

some who set fire to it,

some who say, look—it is all fine, it is ablaze with light now!

–even though the fire does not help.

It burns, consumes.

The suffering left in the dark is now consumed by the light.

We are all but hapless moths that

yearn for perfection, radiance, ideals.

And that is why we take pleasure in light

and fear the darkness.

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I was inspired by people’s search to find things that they want to hear, often neglecting the ugly truth in the process. Even though the truth is ugly, going to a “paradise” instead of acknowledging it can lead to serious consequences. I  wanted to flip the trope of light as goodness and dark as evil on its head. Instead, I wondered, “Why? Is it because people are more comfortable with these familiar concepts than something they’ve never seen before?”

Photo by Yuri Krupenin